Statewide Contracts for Disaster Response Services
There has been growing interest in developing contracts in advance of disasters that could be activated quickly when an emergency occurs. At least two states -- Georgia and Connecticut -- have now implemented such contracts. Information about the Georgia contract is included here because its terms can be invoked by any state or local government, even those outside of Georiga.
The State of Georgia has developed a contract that will assist state and local agencies, public libraries, and public and private universities by stabilizing and recovering vital documents in the event of disasters.
All awarded firms have a national or regional response capacity and are required to permit “other states” to piggyback off this contract providing the contracted scope of work.
The purpose of this contract is to provide a range of mitigation, salvage, and recovery services to the State of Georgia in the event of a natural or man-made disaster/emergency on an as-needed basis as well as to respond in a timely manner to emergencies in which records have been damaged and need stabilization. Services may include, but are not limited to, pack out and removal of damaged materials, tracking of items removed, and any transportation to and from the disaster site. In addition, all awarded firms are experts in the fields of mold removal, freezing, and drying services to public, cultural and records facilities statewide and nationally. The focus of this contract is the initial response period (first 24-48 hours) after a disaster when it is essential to get damaged records stabilized. This contract is not intended to cover long-term site restoration or building drying.
The awarded firms have the knowledge, experience, equipment and capabilities to pack, transport, freeze and remove mold from affected records. They also have the capability of recovering large quantities of wet, smoke damaged, or otherwise affected documents, books, manuscripts, photographs, videos and other library and archival materials while providing for any security measures required by the circumstances. All firms will be able to initiate a response within 2 hours of being called by an Authorized User to any disaster/emergency, 24-hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The scope of services includes drying of records in all formats, and may include magnetic and computer media but NOT data recovery and restoration.
The scope of services includes drying of records in all formats, and may include magnetic and computer
media but NOT data recovery and restoration.
The statewide contract for Stabilization and Recovery of Damaged Records was created by the Georgia Archives in cooperation with the Georgia Department of Administrative Services to protect documents and records including deeds, mortgages, court records, adoption records, marriage and birth records, and many others that Georgians depend on to protect their health, property, and civil rights.
Those eligible to use the contract include:
- state government agency in Georgia
- local government agency in Georgia
- public or private university in Georgia
- public library in Georgia
- a not-for-profit in Georgia that meets specific guidelines issued by FEMA
- a state or territorial government in the United States
Vendors will be able to pack materials and remove them from the disaster area, freeze records to stop deterioration, and recover damaged paper, hard drives, photographs, and more. Records that have been damaged in a disaster are fragile and easily destroyed during the recovery. The new contract ensures that whoever does the recovery work has been prequalified by the state archives as competent to do the work.
In addition, the new contract ensures that recovery work will be done at prices that were established before the disaster. This contract sets the prices for recovery work and eliminates the prospect of prices rising as the result of a widespread disaster. It will protect the records of state agencies, local governments, public libraries, public and private universities, and some not-for-profit organizations.